Second Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation |
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Dr. Pugh: To clarify, is the Minister saying that a local authority’s request for increased flexibility, which we would all regard as highly desirable, must first overcome the hurdle of the local forum and, if it does not, will simply not succeed or not end up on his desk at all? Mr. Twigg: This is one of those points for which I wait for inspiring information to appear on a piece of paper by my side. The schools forum clearly has an important role and, as the hon. Gentleman will know, legislation that is currently passing through the other place and will shortly return to this House is designed
The main function of the Financing of Maintained Schools (England) Regulations 2004 is to set out the rules by which the individual schools budget is divided up between schools using a formula locally determined by the LEA in consultation with schools. Although these are national rules, they allow a great deal of local discretion. Both the hon. Member for Upminster and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North reminded the Committee of the importance of that local discretion. I am particularly aware of mobility issues, and I have read the report produced by Dr. Dobson. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) is right that it is a very important piece of work. Several local authorities, including the local authority in her constituency, are pioneering a very positive approach to mobility. It is important that we get funding for mobility right but, as Dr. Dobson’s report shows, it is also important to have the right practices in place in schools and local communities to support mobile communities, including Travellers. I shall write to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North about the three points that he e-mailed my namesake, one of which relates to Travellers. The vulnerable children’s grant is one of the mechanisms for enhancing support for Travellers in schools, but it is only one element; support for mobility more generally is another. My hon. Friend asked how, within the context of the regulations, an issue such as mobility could be dealt with. He rightly mentioned the dispensations within the regulations; the other way of dealing with such issues is the headroom provided for the vast majority of local authorities by the guarantee and the wider funding settlement. In an announcement to the House last July my predecessor as Minister of State set the level of the minimum funding guarantee for the coming year at 4 per cent. for secondary and special schools and 5 per cent. for primary and nursery schools. However, the minimum funding increase nationally is actually 5.5 per cent. and the average increase for local authorities is 6.9 per cent., which is significantly higher than last year’s figure of 6 per cent. That provides the headroom to enable some issues to be dealt with at local level. Those might include questions relating to mobility, as well as the matter raised by the hon. Member for Upminster and stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North of the work force reform agreement and planning, preparation and assessment time. We have been doing a great deal of detailed work with the head teacher associations and the trade unions that have signed up to the work force reform agreement with the local government employers, to ensure that the terms can be achieved in all our schools in September. Column Number: 13 In answer to the question of the hon. Member for Upminster about what work was done, some very detailed modelling work was done to assess the cost pressures in schools in 2005–06. From that came the higher level of the minimum guarantee for primary schools. That was to recognise that the cost of implementing the next stage of work force reform, giving the guaranteed 10 per cent. for planning, preparation and assessment, is in general likely to be higher in primary schools. That is also why the regulations contain some guarantees for small schools and schools with falling rolls. The guarantee is a matter of stability and of recognising the need for stability by working on the basis of a per-pupil figure, while avoiding a system that gives schools with changing numbers on their rolls excessive protection. That is at the heart of the point that the hon. Member for Southport made. He made similar and equally valid points in the debates last year. If pupil numbers fall, the resultant loss in funding is restricted to the pupil-related elements of funding, in recognition of the fixed costs that schools have. Similarly, the gain for schools with rising numbers of pupils is tied to pupil-related funding. As in the current financial year, 2004–05, there is fall-back protection for schools with sharply rising rolls, set at 3.9 per cent. for secondary schools and 4.9 per cent. for primary schools. As I have said, we shall continue with special arrangements for small schools. The hon. Member for Southport drew the Committee’s attention to the work of the Audit Commission and its survey of chief education officers. There is further flexibility with respect to the minimum funding guarantee. Again, LEAs that consult their schools forum have the flexibility to apply for variations to the operation of the guarantee when it clearly creates an anomalous outcome for certain school budgets. In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency we have approved such a variation, which applies to 15 primary schools in Sefton, to reflect local circumstances. As it happens, nationally, the total number of schools covered by variations is 139, which is a small number; an average of less than one per local education authority. However, in authorities with particular and pressing circumstances, such as the hon. Gentleman’s area, the system has had the flexibility to deal with issues such as those he described. Dr. Pugh: To clarify, I want to point out that the local authority had a formula using age-weighted pupil numbers. An adjustment was then made to the local authority formula to take the total school budget into account; the minimum funding guarantee was applied at a later stage in the budget calculation. The Minister seems to be saying that the local authority’s belief that it needed to do that might have been a slight misunderstanding, or that, even if it were not a misunderstanding, he would certainly have been receptive to the request that the local authority need not do that. Column Number: 14 Mr. Twigg: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The new system came in a year ago, but has taken time to bed down; it is only a two-year system. We have learned some lessons from that process that will inform the work that we are doing. I need to correct something that I just said. The figure of 139 is the number of variations approved. That could cover more than 139 schools, but the point of it being less than one per LEA would still apply in those circumstances. To recap, we have sought to introduce the rule in order to meet a set of challenges that arose two years ago concerning stability and predictability. When a national rule within any system has 150 variants, there will be anomalies. We are working closely with LEAs so that such anomalies are addressed, while ensuring that the basic principle of the guarantee for schools is maintained. The hon. Member for Southport asked a number of specific questions at the end of his remarks. On contingencies, the contingency must be part of the central limit, but we have agreed increases to the school contingency within the limit for three local education authorities that had specific requirements. For example, newly qualified teacher funding, which most LEAs delegate to their schools—although they do not have to—was an issue within at least one of those three LEAs. We do not have a fixed figure that is always the figure for contingencies; it is a matter for negotiation with schools. The hon. Gentleman is right that the only absolute requirement concerns social deprivation, but the regulations are pretty permissive. The only requirement is that 75 per cent. of funding in secondary and primary schools should be pupil-led funding. Beyond that, there is no other requirement except for social deprivation. We shall continue to debate the other elements, including that of mobility, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood referred. The hon. Gentleman reminded the Committee that a broader debate is now taking place about schools funding, some of which is addressed in the Education Bill, which is currently in the other place, and some of which is addressed in the consultation that was launched recently, and to which he drew the Committee’s attention. I should like to use that debate to draw my remarks to a close. What our strategy seeks to do—I am sure it will enjoy cross-party support in the Committee—is to provide adequate funding levels within the system for all authorities, as well as to make progress towards a fairer distribution between authorities. It is no secret that this set of regulations is a response to what happened two years ago in schools and local education authorities. We wanted to respond in a way that balances stability on the one hand with fairness on the other. However, as the hon. Member for Southport rightly said, it creates something of a maze. We want to ensure that authorities fully passport their increases in funding into their school budgets; the recent passporting exercise has been successful, with only five non-passporters. The aim is to provide a
Question put and agreed to. Resolved,
SCHOOLS BUDGET (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS 2004 Resolved,
Committee rose at fifteen minutes past Five o’clock. |
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